Emily’s story
“I would 100% recommend the programme. It’s a two way street & it’s totally beneficial for both parties”: Emily shares her experiences as one of our professional mentors.


Why mentor?
Lockdown left Emily with time to think and reflect, and a desire to push herself into new opportunities: “I was asking myself, what more can I be doing? How can I expand my skills in this new situation, and how can I be helping someone else while I do that?”
After seeing that a member of her network had a positive experience on the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women’s Mentoring Women in Business programme, Emily was intrigued: “I thought it looked really, really good. An opportunity to help someone else and also grow my skills.”
In mentoring, Emily recognised something that could have been a help to her when she was starting out. “I struggled with confidence for a long time,” she told us, “I struggled to put myself forward and to believe in my abilities. Especially as a woman in business; often if you’re not the one shouting the loudest it is seen as a weakness. It can be extremely difficult to navigate through.
Emily’s understanding and belief in the power of mentoring was a real motivator for her: “Mentoring gives you that person to bounce ideas off or just talk through issues with. It gives you someone to provide feedback and guidance, and that’s really helpful in building confidence. It’s really important for women to have networks and links to support that development of confidence. So mentoring is always something I wish I’d had, something that can really help.”
First Impressions
So Emily signed up, and in November 2020 was carefully matched with Irene, a woman entrepreneur based in Lagos who runs a media and publishing business.
“The programme did a great job in matching us up,” Emily recalls, “Both being in the media industry helped us immediately build the connection.” The pair quickly hit the ground running: “The relationship was great from the beginning. Irene has been very open and ready to share everything she is doing.”
Each mentoring relationship takes place totally online, through the Foundation’s newly-redeveloped platform, and with plenty of structure, guidance and support: “I think openness and transparency are so important in a mentoring relationship. Irene and I followed the programme guidelines and spent our first call just chatting about who we are and what we’re doing. I found out a lot about Irene in those early sessions and that really helped us build the foundation of our relationship. It gave us a grounding and a trust, and let us identify where we could help each other.”

Become a mentor and be a business hero
Becoming a mentor offers business professionals the chance to play a pivotal role in an entrepreneur’s business growth at a critical stage of her business.

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